Stung by a bee!

Earlier this evening, I was deadheading one of my cactus dahlias, and as I was walking to the bin I felt a sharp needle like sensation in my finger. A bumblebee was resting underneath the spent flower head and I must of grabbed it by accident! Bee things hurt.......A LOT!!! Owchy!

Is it true that after a bee stings they die? It had left its sting in my finger that I had to get out with mrs al's tweezers!

 

Ouch al n i hope its not true but ive heard the same

 

aln I think after the bee stings they die or you die , not sure which way round it is. I'll just check on Wiki , get back to you tomorrow
Are your cactus dahlias flowering ? Mine have big fat buds on but no sign of a flower yet .

 

Well, I've found out I'm not allergic to bee stings!

My Pom Pom and cactus are well in flower now, beautiful!

 

Some bees lose their sting and die, mainly Honey bees. Most Bees do not have the strength of sting to pierce human skin and many of them do not lose their sting when they use it on other insects. In fact more Wasps lose their stings and die than bees.
We have a gadget called Aspivenin which uses a vacuum to suck out the poison from a sting. Expensive but very worth it.

 

Aah, but you might be next time i'm afraid Al.

 

I think bee stings are hooked whereas wasp stings are psychotic little needles? (Been stung twice by wasps, I dislike them!). I also thought that because they were hooked that when they came to pull out and fly away it ripped the sting off? :( I really like bees, have let them stay on me when I've had the occasional heavily-laden one land on an arm for a rest!

 

Congratulations Al, in my best part of 40 years on this earth, you are the 3rd person that I know to have been stung by a bumblebee

Sorry, I can't offer any advice on the subject. The bumbles do die after stinging a person, because their barbed stinger rips right out and it is part of their inerds. The stinger is a modified egg shoot thingy, so ripping it out would be roughly equivalent to ripping out the lower part of ones anatomy. Apparently its a relic from a common ancestry with parasitic wasps and ants, where the eggs would be laid inside a host, and the barbs would ensure the host didn't escape until the bee was ready. The intended target doesn't have strong enough skin or exoskeleton to injure the bee, so it can just tear itself free and go on its way, but with our 8 layers of very elastic skin, the bee's fate is sealed.

At least that's my understanding.

 

.... just 123 words thereafter

Good job you didn't offer any advice then clue ... you may have blocked server traffic

 

But none of those 123 words were advice.

 

Ok

 

Still not advice. That doesn't give Al any suggestions as to what I think he should do about the sting, therefore not advice

I think we should all reflect on the point that bumblebees very, very rarely sting humans. Even if disturbed, they would usually just get out of there asap. It is only when, through misfortune, they find themselves trapped and in mortal danger (so they think) that they sting in self defence. Might be different if you were to poke a nest, but even then I'm not sure. One time when clearing dead wood on my land, chainsaw in hand, I realised that there were a few bumbles buzzing around me, circling me. They were joined by more and more until I was literally stood in the middle of a cloud of bumbles. They were buzzing higher pitched than usual too, and I could hear them over the sound of the chainsaw, so I realised something was up. Or more accurately, down. I looked down and right by my hobnail boots was a little hole about the size of a mouse hole. Several little faces were guarding it while many more were spewing out to join the circling cloud of bees. I realised then I was stood right on top of their nest, with my sweat and two stroke engine fumes filling the air, it must have been very alarming for them. Not a single one made any attempt to sting me though. Realising what was upsetting them, I just calmly switched the chainsaw off, and walked away. As soon as I was about 10 ft away, the high pitched angry buzzing started to give way to a more regularly bumblebee note, and the cloud started to disperse. Clearly, they weren't happy. In their numbers they could have really hurt me. There was no conflict. They warned me off, I was happy to leave them bee. Everyone was happy.

 

Warning: I'm going to sound like Sheal now

Not wanting to split hairs, clue, but Al had already dealt with the sting before he posted (used Mrs A's tweezers ) and that wasn't his question.

The question he was addressing: "... Is it true that after a bee stings they die? ..."

Your post advised him that yes, they do die. " ... The bumbles do die after stinging a person ... with our 8 layers of very elastic skin, the bee's fate is sealed... "

Or, perhaps I'm reading a different thread/post?

 

Still not advice. Advice takes an "If this then that" format. If there was any advice in there, it could only be to the bumblebees, who, if they read my post, would know why its a bad idea to sting a human. As no bumbles will have read my post, and I didn't intend that they would, then it was not advice any more than saying grass is green is advice.

 

Here's some advice though - never remove a Bee sting with tweezers! If there's still any venom left in the sac tweezers will squeeze it out. Instead remove it with a razor blade/very sharp knife.

Only the Honey Bee will leave its stinger behind though as it is the only Bee to have a barbed stinger. A Bumble Bee can sting multiple times as it has a barbless stinger.

I am allergic to the sting of a Honey Bee - it's scary!